Recommended Dietary Allowance for protein in individuals who like to workout

Protein intake is an interesting topic we talk about from time to time on this page. One of the reasons why it’s interesting is that we’re consistently finding that the Recommended Dietary Allowance for protein intake (0.36 g/lbs.) is too low for those who like to workout. In fact, I’ve written numerous recaps on studies, which have shown this. So keeping with tradition, here’s another one:

In a 4-month study published in the Journal of Nutrition, researchers split 48 women between the ages of 40-56 into 4 groups. All groups consumed a calorie-reduced diet, which provided about the same amount of total calories per day with 30% of that energy coming from fat. One group consumed the RDA for protein with the remainder of their calories coming from carbs. So they had a lower protein and higher carb diet. Another group consumed twice the RDA for protein with the remaining calories coming from carbs. Essentially, this was a higher protein and lower carb diet. The two other groups basically did the same thing. That is, one group had a low-protein, high-carb diet while the other had a high-protein, low-carb diet. However, both of these groups also did cardio and weight training throughout the week.